TAIPEI - Relations between Taipei
and Tokyo have been somewhat overcast during much
of the presidency of Taiwan's Ma Ying-jeou, who in
his youth as an activist vociferously fought for a
set of islets that are controlled by Japan and
claimed by Taiwan and mainland China. But in
recent weeks, ties between Tokyo, which formerly
ruled Taiwan as a colonial power, and Taipei were
seriously put to the test.

It's not so
much that Ma's actual moves have been making the
trouble, but those of an unholy alliance of
Taiwanese lawmakers, a non-government organization
and military elements, which to all appearance
seeks to highjack the island's foreign policy.
While the people that have in effect been
sabotaging Taipei-Tokyo ties

cannot with absolute
certainty be identified as Taiwanese
pro-unification forces, all sights are that
Beijing finds the developments of late promising,
indeed.

In late July, during a Taiwanese
navy drill held off its east coast, Rear Admiral
Chang Feng-chiang defied orders and commanded his
Kidd-class destroyer and a small associated fleet
out of Taiwan's air defense identification zone
(ADIZ). The naval group surrounding one of
Taiwan's main surface combatants then sailed full
steam toward Japanese territorial waters. It did
not intrude these but nonetheless alerted the
militaries of Japan and the United States, which
form a security alliance against mainland China.
After the renegade fleet stayed about 12 hours in
waters it was never supposed to enter, Chang
commanded it back to Taiwan and, not surprisingly,
was given a major demerit in addition to being
removed from the fleet's top position.

Yet, tellingly, what followed in the
landscape of Taiwanese domestic politics was not
so much an outcry over a serious deterioration of
military discipline nor the adverse effect this
episode could have on bilateral ties with Japan,
which after all has been one of the island's few
de facto allies for decades, but furious protests
by a group of lawmakers belonging to Taiwan's
ruling Kuomintang (KMT). They not only found that
Chang's punishment had been way too harsh, but
also that the government by imposing it had
kowtowed to Tokyo. According to this school of
thought, the Ma administration's stance on the
disputed Senkaku (called Diaoyutai in Taiwan and
Diaoyu in mainland China) Islands is much too weak
and cowardly, and if anything, Rear Admiral Chang
should have been decorated and given a medal for
his mutiny.

As Japanese territory wasn't
touched, Tokyo refrained from lodging a formal
protest. That the incident raised eyebrows among
Japanese policymakers and those of the US can be
taken for granted, however. This is especially so
as there have been a number of other issues
recently that, even though relatively minor
compared with a Kidd-class destroyer going astray,
undoubtedly left their mark, too, on Tokyo's
perceptions on Taipei.

The most notable
incident occurred just weeks earlier, when
Taiwanese activists belonging to the Chung Hwa
Baodiao (Chinese Defenders of Diaoyutai) Alliance
of Taiwan sailed to the disputed islands under the
protection of a sizable Taiwanese coast guard
fleet and engaged in a tense standoff with
Japanese patrol boats there, while waving not the
Taiwanese flag but that of mainland China.

President Ma's approval ratings are
reported to hover around a dismal 15%. Lawmakers
of his own KMT have openly rebelled against the
cabinet on a number of issues, most notably Ma's
plan to allow imports of US beef containing the
lean-meat enhancer ractopamine for the sake of
smooth relations with the island's No 3 trade
partner and security guarantor. If a growing
number of voices now pressure Ma to go tough on
Japan, he will likely feel tempted to appease them
to ensure his own political survival and that of
his faction. But a confrontational attitude
directed at Tokyo over disputed waters would also
inevitably put Taipei in a position against
Washington.

The Americans once again made
very clear on whose side they stand as recently as
early August, when US Secretary of Defense Leon
Panetta reportedly told his Japanese counterpart
Satoshi Morimoto that the US military's most
advanced drones would soon hover over the Senkakus
to check on Beijing's naval activities there.
According to numerous Japanese media reports,
Taipei's pro-Beijing position has already been
making Tokyo wary, and if Ma were to listen to his
domestic critics and begin waving his fist at the
Japanese, it would be profoundly against Tokyo's
interest if Washington continued selling Taipei
weapons. As a result, Washington's obligation to
arm Taiwan as stipulated under the Taiwan
Relations Act might eventually be pushed further
on to the back burner than it has already been, an
outcome much to Beijing's liking.

Although
things might not quite be this dramatic yet,
according to Chen Ching-Chang, a professor at
Japan's Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, the
twists and turns the Senkaku dispute has been
taking lately have already somewhat decreased
Taiwan's chances of obtaining foreign weapons.
Chen did extensive research on Japan's relaxation
of controls for arms exports, which could in
theory have paved the way for Japanese arms
transfers via the US to Taiwan. But such far-flung
notions are now definitely off the table, he
reckons.

He emphasized that the
activists' act was not officially sanctioned and
that the "East China Sea Peace Initiative"
recently announced by Ma, in which Taipei called
on all sides in the Senkaku dispute to exercise
self-restraint and avoid escalation, could be seen
as Ma's reassurance that Taipei is not forming a
united front with Beijing over the disputed
islands. "But the fact remains that Taiwan has not
made itself a trustworthy ally for Japan that
deserves Tokyo to stand Beijing's fury," Chen
said.

The East China Sea Peace Initiative
referred to was apparently thought up to counter
the threat actions such as that of the Baodiao
movement and Rear Admiral Chang pose to
Taiwan-Japan relations. By reportedly having sent
the proposal first to Tokyo and then to Beijing,
and also because Ma by coming up with such a plea
presented his government as a sovereign player
that has its own foreign policy, as opposed to one
who lets Beijing sort things out for the
well-being of a Chinese nation that includes
Taiwan, it was seen as an affront in Beijing.

By contrast, Tokyo was obviously pleased
somewhat. That Ma's initiative has what it takes
fully to salvage Taipei-Tokyo ties is doubtable,
however.

According to Professor Chen,
there is confusing and conflicting information
regarding Tokyo's perception of Ma. Last year,
Taipei's former representative Feng Chi-tai and Ma
himself boasted that the Taiwan-Japan relationship
was in its best in 40 years, a view Chen has
difficulties subscribing to. He believes that the
recent headline-grabbing incidents were not the
initial bone of contention in bilateral relations,
but that the turning point came as early as in
2009, when the former Japanese representative to
Taipei Saito Masaki remarked in an academic
conference that Taiwan's status remained
"undetermined". Such a term touched on the KMT's
core sensitivities, as the party insists that
Japan already returned Taiwan to the KMT's
Republic of China (ROC) in 1952, and any other
interpretation would make it look as if the KMT
were ruling over Taiwan as a foreign and thus
illegitimate regime.

"What Saito said
actually reflected the Japanese government's
position; he was never punished by the Foreign
Ministry," Chen said. "But the Ma administration
refused to interact with him after the incident,
eg did not invite him to diplomatic functions;
this eventually forced Tokyo to replace Saito."

Chen then shed additional light on the
Japanese perspective. According to him, Tokyo does
not recognize that Taiwan belongs to the PRC even
though it no longer sees the ROC as the legitimate
government of China. Keeping Taiwan out of the
PRC's hands also matters greatly in strategic
terms for the Japan, as control over the island
would make it easier for the mainland's military
to cut Japan's sea lanes of communication (SLOCs),
Chen said.

The Diaoyutai incidents "fuel
Tokyo's distrust of Ma. But the noise that the KMT
government makes for domestic purposes could work
to Beijing's advantage, as it implies that Taiwan
is indeed a part of China."